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lmondun self-indulgence II: Mystere, Ramsey Pub, Heritage Steak, L'Atelier and more

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by lmondun, Dec 12, 2013.

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  1. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    Dining. Part One of Four: Casual meals.

    After, gulp, several hours of writing, I am ready to post about our entire as-yet-unreported dining experience during the trip. But I’ll break it up into four different sections to be added to this trip report Thursday night and Friday. I figure this will allow anyone interested in a particular restaurant to skip ahead more easily to find the one that most interests them.

    Let’s start with a quick (for me) overview of our casual meals.

    During our trip, we had one breakfast and a post-show light dinner at Carnegie Deli at Mirage. I understand why some people don’t particularly like the place (long lines to get in because it’s relatively small, meat-meat-and-more-meat, occasionally indifferent service), but we are fans because of the matzo-ball / golden noodle soup, the cabbage rolls and the breakfast omelets. (The cheesecake is also good, though we didn’t partake this trip.) As a Noir card holder, I also get to bypass the line, and so it’s a relatively quick turnaround for us when we eat there, even during busy times. Pricing is not low, but it’s not outlandish for Vegas.

    Our Sunday meal of choice was the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars, and it remains the only buffet in Vegas that I look forward to experiencing. We timed our meal for 2 p.m., thinking it would serve as both lunch and dinner, but that meant that some of the food selections were in the process of being changed over from brunch, and our options were somewhat mismatched during return trips.

    As usual, the selection of Asian entrees was excellent, and there were crab legs and fried chicken and several cuts of roasted beef. By the time we finished, they had added other favorites such as lamb chops.

    I didn’t think the dessert selection was as appealing as we had seen during a dinnertime visit on our previous trip, but I made two treks to the dessert bar nonetheless.

    The meal was on par with our previous positive experience, and everyone in our party had plenty to eat.

    Other things I remember about the meal:

    1) a bus boy told me that I look like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair

    2) the crowd that day skewed heavily Asian (six of the 10 tables around us included at least one patron I took to be of Chinese or Pacific Asian descent, and two others were filled with people who seemed to be of Indian heritage)

    3) my GF became enamored of a chandelier that appeared to be made of drinking glasses and that led to a walk-through of the dining area to admire all the other instances at Bacchanal in which glassware is utilized in a decorative fashion.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2013
  2. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    Dining. Part Two of Four. Fine dining / Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey

    I’ll tackle our remaining fine dining meals in chronological order (having covered Onda previously).

    We wanted to try Gordon Ramsey’s Pub even though we’ve never watched him on TV and we’d had a poor experience at his restaurant at Paris LV about a year ago that featured the least-tasty salmon in memory. We decided to try the Pub at lunch because we figured there would be less risk of a similar bad experience and because we were also going to dine at Heritage Steak during the trip – one steak per visit is enough for me. We understood going in that would mean a limited menu of pub fare and not the lavish selection of new tastes that a celebrity chef might be expected to deliver. (We had checked beforehand to ensure that the sticky toffee pudding was available at lunch, and that was our only “must-do” on the menu.)

    As expected, the lunch menu was relatively thin, but there were plenty of Ramsey’s takes on what we would perceive as traditional British dishes. We enjoyed the pub atmosphere and spent some time speculating whether the beer kegs used as decorations were real or fake (a quick thump to the side of one on my way out confirmed that they are made of metal, at least.)

    My GF ordered the Fish & Chips, and she liked them a lot and shared one strip of fish and a third of her fries with me. The fish was lightly coated with a subtle batter that did not overpower the cod it surrounded. The chips looked like French fries but tasted much more like slivers of baked potato. I thought the presentation was relatively subdued (unlike the cone of fries they serve at Nine Fine Irishman at NYNY), but certainly appealing.

    SM had the sheppard’s pie, which she liked. I did not get a taste, but it seemed to be nicely prepared and presented, though the portion size was relatively small for the $23 price, I thought.

    Because I had suspected that my GF would not finish her dish alone, I only had a Caesars Salad (with the anchovies), which tasted exactly how a traditional Caesars salad at a restaurant inside Caesars Palace should taste.

    For dessert, we had the sticky toffee as planned, bringing our total bill to about $85 before tip. It’s a really really really good dessert and, as one VMB member noted in his own excellent report about one of Ramsey's other restaurants, there’s something about it that evokes a child-like feeling of well-being, at least in me. But the ladies were indifferent and only had a half-a-spoonful each. (Maybe my previously unsuspected genetic connection to Tony Blair somehow factors into my enjoyment of this dish.)

    Back tomorrow with L'Atelier and Heritage Steak.
     
  3. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    Dining. Part Three of Four. Fine dining / Celebrated chef Joel Robuchon

    L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is my favorite restaurant. I would definitely make the four plus-hour drive to Vegas from L.A. just for a meal here. I love the relatively small size and the counter seating and the open kitchen where food preparation is treated as performance art. We set aside three hours for Friday dinner, figuring that our meal would be the entertainment for the night. Who needs Cirque du Soleil acrobats when you have culinary daredevils performing their own feats of derring-do in the kitchen just a few feet away?

    There are a few standard tables near the back wall, and I always feel sorry for L’Atelier customers who don’t know better than to allow themselves to be seated there, thus missing the Food Network show that is about to play out nearby. But we know better, and insist on the counter that surrounds the kitchen on three sides. My seat is in a prime location at the far corner, which means that I will be able to see the kitchen while interacting easily with my party and eavesdropping on patrons lining the long row of counter seats stretching from our location back to the entrance. The best part: I will get a front-row seat as dishes are served to fellow diners seated just around the corner to my left.

    My GF helps her mother navigate the menu and its French words and gourmet selections. Our server, Eric, also pitches in to help, and the two ladies end up ordering a handful of selections from the small plates and a la carte menus. I insist that SM try the La Langoustine dish with its amazing basil pesto fritters that make me tear up just thinking about – and they consent to let me experience the full seasonal discovery menu and its nine courses. Because I was otherwise occupied with my own fit of gluttony, I can’t comment specifically on the tastes of their orders other than to say that each one was met with delight upon arrival and cleared quickly from the plate with zeal. In addition to the langoustines, they each had an order of Le Macaroni (with green asparagus and smoked veal bacon), and they added a wonderful seasonal salad that we watched being prepared by a chef utilizing tweezers for just-the-right placement of every leaf and vegetable. One of them also ordered Le Boeuf (ribeye steak with roasted shallots), according to the receipt we saved, but I don’t recall the reaction. They shared Les Tartes for dessert, which the pastry chef kindly modified to my GF’s liking because of her chocolate allergy. The lemon tart was her favorite.

    The centerpiece of our dining experience was the seasonal discovery menu, which I noticed being served that night to a good portion of our fellow diners. At $159 per person, the price was reasonable for the amount of food and creativity of the selections, and I counted at least five other orders:

    1-2) two men – one about age 30 to our immediate right and the other around age 60 around the corner to my left – both dining alone

    3) a group of three (two attractive, tipsy and handsy women accompanying one seemingly-about-to-get-very-lucky-in-Vegas man) who were finishing their main courses as we were seated.

    4-5) two separate couples who arrived during the course of our meal and gave the impression that they were first-timers looking for a special meal to remember. Judging by the oohs and ahhs and photos they were continuously snapping, they proceeded to get it.

    My meal was nine courses. Before the restaurant’s serving of its L’Amuse-Bouche (foie gras in a port wine reduction with parmesan foam), we asked our server for a copy of the menu, which he happily provided (with all the other tasting menu patrons soon following suit). Having the menu close at hand was a great way of helping us to decipher the goings-on in the kitchen (“Did you see the head chef order that cook to completely redo the dish he just spent 5 minutes assembling?”) and also to remind me of exactly what I was eating (“Oh, so that’s Matsutake”!)

    I did not get the associated wine pairings, but the older gentleman to my left did so, and he was no longer dining alone for the night – instead, he had a sommelier to narrate almost the entirety of his meal thereafter. They were just a bit too far away for me to hear everything that was said, but I definitely got the impression that the gentleman knew his food and wine and was looking to see how well L’Atelier would meet his expectations. Now, the serving staff at L’Atelier are always just a few feet away as they lean over the counter to serve dishes, clear plates and take orders, but I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such personalized service at a restaurant as what I saw that Friday between the sommelier and the older gentleman. They chatted almost continuously, breaking only when another patron had a question about a wine or when a new dish arrived to be explained by the serving staff. At one point, I noticed that the sommelier seemed to depart from the set pairing choices to offer a sip of three different wines for comparison’s sake. If you’re a lover of fine food and fine drink and you’re in Las Vegas alone at a convention or on business trip, I can’t imagine a more satisfying way to spend an evening than to partake in the entire tasting and wine menu at L’Atelier (particularly if you have a generous expense account).

    If you’ve made it this far, then you know that I could easily expend 500 words on each one of my courses. But, since some of you probably have actual lives, I’ll try to get through it with a brief bulleted list instead:

    • L’Amuse Bouche: See above. Great as always (presuming you do not object to foie gras on moral grounds).
    • L’Hamachi (a light fish often used in sushi, served with a ravioli of sea urchin and lemon vinaigrette): An excellent starter, with some zest in the sauce to wake up the taste buds.
    • Le Crabe Royal (roasted king crab served over spiced eggplant soup): Delicate and delicious. The smooth flavor of the crab gets jolted by the spice of the soup (which is really more of a puree, by the way).
    • Le Foie Gras de Canard (seared duck foie gras served with sweet and sour grapes): Foie gras is so rich that a little goes a long way for me, but the contrast of the grapes works well. Since I can’t really tell a sweet grape from a sour one by sight, each bite is a bit of a surprise.
    • Le Matsutake (a type of mushroom, served in bouillon with gingered leeks and quail egg): I had no preconception regarding this dish, which was served as a soup and was probably my favorite single item of the meal. It pained me to finish the last spoonful.
    • Le Saint-Pierre (john dory over artichoke hearts with a warm wine-based sauce): Yes, another fish dish, but it’s so very different from the others that I didn’t actually notice the preponderance of fish until writing this summary. I remember that it was good. But this was about the time that my second vodka and tonic was kicking in, so my recollection of the specifics are a little hazy.
    • La Caille (caramelized quail with foie gras and mashed potatoes): Having shotgunned a few quail of my own back on the family farm, I’m not particularly enamored of quail as a main course. But the other option was a steak and I knew that I would be getting full by the time this dish arrived. It was fine, but it doesn’t stand out in my memory as a dish I would definitely order off the a la carte menu. The potatoes are the same buttery Robuchon puree that I remember, however, and my GF sees them and promptly orders two additional servings for herself and her mother. Then, when they see our additional servings arrive and get devoured with gusto, the two Italian-speaking men who have replaced the threesome to my left order servings of their own. If you like butter and like potatoes and don’t care overmuch about your waistline or your arteries, then this side dish is not to be missed.
    • Les Baies Rouges (chiffon cake with raspberry sorbet, mixed berries and vanilla cream): Just. Reread. The. Ingredients. Good dessert, right? Very good.
    • Le Dulce (chocolate fondant with dulce cream and cherry sorbet): This one seemed like a perfect dessert to have with a cup of cappuccino. And I do. And it is.

    The total for the meal comes to $385, and we add $80 for the tip. I bill it back to our room, and the Mirage ends up covering all but the tip and my two drinks with an F&B comp. Someday, we will dine at Joel Robuchon’s other Vegas restaurant next door, and I may discover that my favorite restaurant in the world is a mere shadow of its pricier and more lavish cousin. But on this night I feel like I’ve been to Utopia — along with my significant other and her beloved mother. And it only cost us a hundred bucks.
     
    Last edited: Dec 27, 2013
  4. PopMegaphone

    PopMegaphone VIP Whale

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    L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon my favorite vegas restaurant as well. Great write-up.
     
  5. firstkill

    firstkill High-Roller

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    excellent write up.
    spend the whole night doing the 16 course next door. its a crazy experience.

    I rank it above French laundry


    fk
     
  6. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    It's definitely on my bucket list, though the sheer number of dishes intimidates my GF. I suspect I'll get there one of these days with one of my two friends who like Vegas and consider themselves to be amateur chefs of some skill.
     
  7. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    Dining. Part Four of Four. Fine dining / Celebrity chef Tom Colicchio

    Although L’Atelier is my favorite restaurant, it’s not well-suited to large parties, unlike one of our other Vegas favorites, Craftsteak at MGM. A few years ago, we had Thanksgiving dinner at Craftsteak with a group of 10 family and friends who persistently comment about the excellence of that meal every time the holiday season rolls around again (we also get occasional gag gifts related to the restaurant’s ridiculously tasty Monkey Bread dessert). So, we’ve been anxiously awaiting the opening of Colicchio’s new venture at Mirage, Heritage Steak.

    We’ve booked an early reservation to allow plenty of time to eat before attending the 9:30 late show of Mystere next door at Treasure Island. It’s Saturday in Vegas during the middle of the great freeze of 2013, so the fact that we’re staying close to home base for the night turns out to be fortuitous scheduling. The conversion of the old Kokomo’s site to Heritage Steak had been almost finished when we had last visited Vegas in July, and we had tried to peek behind the construction façade during that trip, to no avail. So this was both our first look at the new restaurant and our first dinner there.

    We like the setting and think it was a wise choice to reposition the entrance to be just past the entryway on the casino-side rather than being off the lobby, as before. The bar is easily visible to passers-by, and the hostess station is prominently featured and seems likely to attract some hungry walk-up customers headed to or from the LOVE theater at the back of the casino.

    Inside, the room is spacious and darkly elegant, and we take note of the large table set aside for big parties on a slightly elevated platform. We also notice a wall filled with planks of wood, apparently doubling as decoration and storage for the wood-fired grills. There is a prominent kitchen with two wood-fired stoves filled with a multitude of steaks in preparation. We note four chefs/cooks in the area, with a team of two apparently focused on salads while two others keep watch solely on the steaks nearby. All of the cooks do their jobs efficiently, and they seem to have some time to ogle back at the patrons as they go about their jobs on a night when the restaurant is about three-quarters full of early diners. The actual plating of each main dish takes place out-of-sight behind a door that apparently leads to another kitchen area, and all of our food arrives promptly with a team of servers to ensure that everyone gets their food together.

    My first visit to Craftsteak had been at the urging of a vegetarian friend – which will seem odd to anyone who focuses solely on steak and ignores the wonderful side dishes that are available. We are happy to see that Colicchio has paid similar attention to the side dishes at Heritage Steak, with a few of our favorites also on the menu here. Because we had gorged ourselves on potato puree the night before at L’Atelier, we resist the urge to order it again and try a couple of other items at Heritage instead. The spicy onion rings (recommended by our server) are light and flavorful, and they don’t seem greasy at all. We also get our own serving of seared baby carrots that looked delightful when they passed our table on the way to someone else’s seat. I can say without exaggeration that these were the best carrots I’ve ever tasted, with a perfect honey glaze that is not so sweet that it would overpower the multi-colored carrots.

    For entrees, I get a NY Strip Steak that is tender, juicy and perfectly cooked, and my companions again get short ribs (as with the meal at Onda, they are happy with the result). My steak is on par with steaks I’ve eaten previously in Vegas at places such as Prime and Carne Vino, but it’s not quite as special as the domestic Wagyu ribeye that I usually order at Craftsteak. When we return to Heritage Steak with friends who love steak more than I do – as we surely will – then I will probably go for a different cut such as the Kobe skirt or the A5 ribeye.

    We finish the meal by sharing two desserts even though my GF’s mother insists that she is completely full and could not possibly eat another bite of food. In the end, she has more than one bite of both the Ricotta Corn Fritters (with blueberries and sweet corn ice cream) and the Apple Tart Tatin. The apple tart is a dish we’ve had before, at Craftsteak. If you’ve ever tried frozen Apple Blossoms sold by Trader Joe’s and, lately, some supermarkets, then you’ll get the idea of this dessert, but no frozen concoction can hope to match this wonderful crispy mix of tasty apples and caramel goodness.
    The bill for three people is a little over $200 before tip, and it includes two coffees, a juice and a couple of ice teas, but no alcohol. Nor did it include the priciest cuts of meat. That’s not inexpensive, but it meets our expectations. We’ll definitely dine at Heritage Steak again, and I would think, from what I saw and overheard, the restaurant will also satisfy those people who believe that a fine dining experience starts and ends with a good steak.

    --

    Still to come: I’ll finish up the trip report early next week with details of our experience at Mystere and Million-Dollar Quartet. Also, a status check regarding my job hunt (for some reason, I got more emails about work opportunities during the four days that I was in Vegas than during the entire rest of the month of December). And I'll work in a hooker story from this trip somehow too.
     
  8. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    Nice restaurant reviews! Great to hear that none of the restaurants were a disappointment, especially Ramsey's Pub.
     
  9. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    The shows

    --
    At last, it’s time to wrap up this trip report with some thoughts about Mystere and Million-Dollar Quartet, plus a few other things that seem interesting, to me at least.

    Everyone in our party had seen Mystere at least a couple of times in the past, but it occupies a fond spot in our memories because it was our first Cirque show and thus our first exposure to the awe-inspiring acrobatic feats that make Cirque shows worth seeing. To me, it’s the most truly circus-like of the Vegas shows, with elements that definitely owe a debt to Ringling Bros.: funny clowns, strong men, trapeze artists.

    Although it had been about three years since our last viewing, not much has changed in Mystere. Oh, I’m sure some of the actual performers have changed over the years – and since it’s 20 years old now, there may even be some legacy performers in the group. But it’s still essentially the same show that I first saw more than a decade ago. *spoiler alert* There’s the defiant clown who entertains the gathering audience by leading unsuspecting patrons to the wrong seats and returns for more mischief as the show goes along. There are sideways acrobats who climb up poles using only their hands. There are daring young men flying through the air with the greatest of ease. And, of course, there’s that 300-pound baby.

    We have learned over the years that you don’t want to sit too close to the stage at a Cirque show – the spectacle is more impressive from a bit of a distance, especially during the big production segments that feature numerous performers all doing their thing at once. For this visit, we had booked seats in the last row of the front section without thinking it through. As soon as the opening clown started leading his first show-goers through the aisle behind us toward the wrong seats, we realized that we were going to be in danger of becoming part of the show. And, yes, we got covered in popcorn more than once, but at least I didn’t get the “honor” of serving as a temporary table for a stack of popcorn tubs like the poor fellow about 10 seats to my left. Still, by the time that Mystere actually began, I had a handful or two of popcorn in my lap. It was slightly warm, which made me curious, so I popped a kernel in my mouth. Stale. At least three days stale, in fact.

    Once the lights dimmed, we sat back and enjoyed ourselves. Mystere has more clown bits and dancing-around-in-goofy-costume time-fillers than I remembered. And a couple of them do go on for a long time. But it was still fun, even slightly nostalgic – like watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” every year at Christmastime. Yes, I knew that the baby was going to bounce his ball into the front row. I knew that the guys and gals with the weird-looking costumes who pranced around a teeter-totter were going to end up doing something amazing. And, yes, I knew that a gigantic snail was going to be part of the grand finale. But that knowledge didn’t prevent me from laughing and smiling and exchanging a couple of admiring rib pokes with my GF when acrobats were spinning or flipping or flying or hand-standing in precarious locations. All in all, it was money well-spent. I’m sure we’ll be back again in a few years.

    Our other show for this trip was a return visit to Million-Dollar Quartet, which my GF and I had just seen in July. My GF’s mother had never seen it, though, and we decided that the subject matter would be ideal for her, especially since she’d actually met Johnny Cash in person many years before. During my previous trip report, I provided a detailed description of the setting and some highlights of the show, so I won’t go over all those details again here. But I think I liked it better the second time. I was less distracted by the admittedly entertaining antics of the Jerry Lee Lewis character and paid closer attention to other performances. The Sam Phillips character is portrayed in a believable manner by an actor with obvious charisma. The lone female in the cast has a wonderful singing voice and seemed to me to be the one most focused on staying in character throughout the show even though Dyanne is actually, you know, fictitious. The guitar playing of the guy who plays Carl Perkins is really quite spectacular. When “Johnny Cash” sang, it really did sound like Johnny Cash. The performer playing Elvis was the only cast member who was not the same as in July, and I preferred this one. My GF liked the previous one. But Elvis is really more of a secondary character in Million-Dollar Quartet anyway.
    As expected, SM really enjoyed the entire production, so we were glad that we chose it. Her delight made me feel good about sharing the experience together, though it did make me a little sad that my own mother had passed away the year before and thus we never got the chance for a similar musical bonding. It’s the sort of show that works really well if shared across generations, and I would urge anyone who’s over 50 to drag their kids and grandkids along even if they protest. It’s fine family entertainment.

    --

    OK. The entire report has been written but I'm going to post the last two parts separately just because I'm smugly self-important and think they work better as separate chapters than tacked onto this entry. Up soon: the hooker story.
     
  10. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    A hooker story

    OK, let’s see: NASCAR parade … check. Cowboys … check. Gambling … check. Dining … check. Shows … check. Is there anything else worth mentioning? Oh, yeah, the aggressive hooker.

    With the Mirage doing whatever it could to attract as much of the rodeo crowd as possible, I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that some ladies of the evening realized that a whole passel of potential clients were in town, liquored up and potentially primed for some more bareback escapades. At one point during the weekend, we passed by the beer bash near the sports book and I noticed at least half a dozen women loitering about who did not look like any cowgirls I’d ever seen. Micro skirts exposing flesh you don’t normally see in public. Ultra-high heels. Brightly colored bras at least two cup sizes too small. No hats or boots or blue jeans among them.

    Now, I’ve been approached by my fair share of Vegas hookers over the years, in singles and occasionally in pairs. Most just ask if I “want to party,” but I’ve also had some inquire about my luck (and suggest how it might soon improve). I’ve had hookers sit next to me at a slot machine and pretend to fumble for money to play while inquiring about my apparent lack of female companionship. There were a couple who started with a personal tale of woe, as in, “I moved here from Albuquerque with my boyfriend and then he dumped me and … now I just want to feel good again for a little while." Wink.

    But I’ve never before had one single me out while I was walking through the casino, sidle up two inches from my nose to offer her services, then refuse to take “no thanks” for an answer and loudly tag along with me at least a hundred yards past all manner of security guards while still trying to persuade me that she was “not to be missed, honey.”

    When she finally slowed down as I approached the guy who checks for guest cards at the elevators, I quickly sped ahead and hopped into an open elevator.

    Before the door could fully close, it popped open again and . . .

    . . . a 30-something couple stepped in.

    The door closed and the elevator whirred quickly toward the top. About halfway up, my eyes met the eyes of the other man:

    “Man,” he said, “I really thought you were going to go for it there.”
     
  11. dvandentop

    dvandentop VIP Whale

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    LMAO that elevator coversation is great

    thanks for the excellent tr
     
  12. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    Epilogue: the job hunt

    Over the course of the five days (and four nights) that we were in Vegas, I received several emails regarding four separate jobs opportunities, including:

    A note that arrived Thursday from a person I thought I’d impressed during a phone interview the week before. No dice. “Proceeding with another candidate.”

    On Friday, two more. Another “thanks, but no thanks” from a potential job that I really didn’t want much anyway because it is in Oregon (where I don’t live), and a “we’d like to talk” note from a SoCal company that I’d contacted just a few days before the Vegas trip. (Have had two subsequent phone interviews for that one.)

    On Sunday, the results of the Skype interview became clear: “We are ready to proceed to the next step of the hiring process. Please provide references …”

    Hurray!

    It’s not an offer, but at least I didn’t completely blow it with the near-meltdown on the first day.

    So, I’m not yet working full time again. But I did pick up some part-time work recently that gives me a little financial cushion while I continue looking. My GF still makes a good salary and seems to be looking more and more like marriage material (me? maybe not so much). I think the long-term possibilities are looking up. Feeling hopeful. Feeling positive. Think I’ll be ready to celebrate my good fortune pretty soon now.

    And how do I celebrate?

    Yep. Contacted my Mirage host Monday morning. Super Bowl party, here we come!
     
  13. lotso-bear

    lotso-bear VIP Whale

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    Best of luck with the job hunt. It's definitely a tough market.
     
  14. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

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    Thanks, lotso. Writing this report was a good distraction. One of the jobs I am seeking has a writing component, so this report was also good for shaking the rust off, I hope.
     
  15. Kickin

    Kickin Flea

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    Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed and entertaining report. Your restaurant reviews are so well-written and full of useful information they should have their own threads in the Restaurants section. Both L’Atelier and Robuchon have always been at the top of my list of places to go but I never seem to make it. But after reading your review of L'Atelier I'm more interested than ever.
     
  16. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    Messages:
    306
    Location:
    Southern California
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    75
    If there was a way to cross-link the appropriate sections from a trip report to the restaurant reviews section, I would do it. Have thought about just copy\pasting the relevant info in both places and may go ahead and do so for the L'Atelier info if I get some free time over the next couple of days. You should definitely try at least one of the Robuchon restaurants, KC.

    The meals are such a big part of our Vegas experience that I feel like they should be included in the trip reports, but my long-winded writing style doesn't make the info very accessible to people interested only in a particular show or restaurant. During our next trip, we plan to try Guy Savoy for the first time. I will probably just write a review of that meal in the Restaurants section.
     
  17. lmondun

    lmondun Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2010
    Messages:
    306
    Location:
    Southern California
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    75
    So, my GF and I will be back in Vegas for four days as of Thursday. The highlight of this trip will probably be our first-ever dinner at Guy Savoy. Not sure whether I will tackle another trip report, but will definitely write about Guy Savoy for the restaurants thread. If someone has advice about which dishes to order, It would be welcomed. We are using my 7 Stars "celebration" voucher, which gives us $500 to spend on a meal for two. My GF does not drink or eat in excess, so they may need a dolly to wheel me out of the restaurant afterward.
     
  18. Kiwicol

    Kiwicol Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2008
    Messages:
    345
    Location:
    Christchurch, New Zealand
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    7
    Have a great trip - and thanks for bumping this previous trip report - I missed it first time round.

    Really enjoy your writing style. The "pan fish" description & Tony Blair - dessert link were hilarious !:beer:
     
  19. LV_Bound

    LV_Bound VIP Whale

    Joined:
    Nov 17, 2010
    Messages:
    9,484
    Location:
    Florida
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    32
    Enjoyed the trip report especially the hooker and Top Dollar wins. :beer:
     
  20. luckylinda

    luckylinda High-Roller

    Joined:
    May 20, 2009
    Messages:
    949
    Location:
    PHOENIX AZ
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    122
    Thanks for the report. Good luck with upcoming trip and hope you write about your next meal!
     
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